Removing LAFHA no laughing matter

private college syste m was reviewed and effective ly di smantled, whic h nm only affected tl1e furure of a number o f overseas students but also had an adverse impact on me export earning capabilities o f the education sector.

Chand,

Sudarshan,

G deSouza, Tim Blight, Petra O'Neill,

Natarajan, Uttam Mukherjee, Shafeen Mustaq, Malli Iyer, Rani Jhala, Geeta Khurana, Nancy Althea, Avijit Sarkar

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While on one hand the gove rnment is keen to build ics credentials promoting Australia as a good place to do business for Indian and o ther multinational companie s, on the other band, a grab for cash b y removing the tax benefits related to Living Away From Horne Allowance (LAHFA) as per the current budget, will be a serious detriment co lndian companies sending their top profess ionals to work in Australia.

L1 a global marketplace where countries are competing for top talent to en h ance their l ocal workforce skills and business opportunities, shutting this perk could be another shorts ighted measure by the Gillard government. LAFHJ\ is paid to overseas workers on a tax -free basis to all.ow them to meet their expenses and ro an extent, compensate chem for other d,arges (such as cost of children's education even in the public sch ool system) which they pay as overseas residents.

It is to be remembered that it was under Julia Gillard's tenure as die Minister for Education that the

E nrol ments have fal.le n, colleges have dosed, srudeors have faced and continue ro face w1cercainties, and a number of l ndian bus inesses have closed down due to tl1e slowdown in new student arrivals.

Indian IT co mpanies SLtcb as Infosys, Wipro, TCS, 1-ICL and other l ASSCOM Australia members a re active contributors co the economy. Witl1 a comb ined workforce of over 10,000, t hese companies employ Indian IT workers to work on projects in Australia. By doing so, they are able to crossover Indian IT skills with rneir local Australian workforce, and allow for a h igh level of skills transfer. NASSCOM Australia member companies have currentl y invested upwards of $100111 to set up more than 20 development centres in J\ustra1ia; they have strong links with man y univers ities in Australia to recmit students for global projects, run student internships programmes and bave esrablished scho larships.

All tlus is under scan now as these companies, w luch provide back up services to various Australian compa1ues such as Telstra, Qantas, Westpac,

Commo n wealtl, bank etc. , s cramble ro make the employment opportunities here more exciting for their potential employees from India Not being able to package part of tl1eir salary package und er LAFHA and still bearing the full costs of public school education for tl1eir children or their Medicare costs, makes Austra1ia a less attracti\·e destination for these employees whose skill sets are in demand globally.

As an Indian Australian community, we lose om a new se t of educated and ethical furure nugrants; as Austra1ians, we mis s out on attracting rop talent down under.

The l'vfinister for Immig ration and Citizenship, Chris Bowen i\1fP, has just returned from India where he reaffirmed the importance Australia places o n its longstanding bilateral relation slup with India.

But it seems char his colleagues in Canberra are not of the same mind as they implement new taxes on a large numbe r of Indian workers on 457 visas, by raking away tl1eir LAFI-IA benefits.

Whetl1er this effects the Australian economy in a sim ilar way as me changes to tl1e eel ucation policy, only time will tell.

Bur one suspects, these increased costs will be passed on to me Australian clients by their Indian IT suppliers, wh ich tl1en will be paid by me local cons urn e r